


could be dirtier

by nobodysusername



Category: Political Animals
Genre: Because I suck, Gen, and i wrote this for myself, this is shitty angsty hurt comfort bullshit, whomp whomp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 02:46:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1573283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nobodysusername/pseuds/nobodysusername
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TJ can't remember last night. It's not anything new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	could be dirtier

He wakes up feeling like shit.

This isn’t anything new, obviously, but it still sucks. Just like every day.

TJ rubs his eyes and sits up, rolling his shoulders and wincing at the soreness burning his muscles. He kicks off the sheets that have managed to tangle around his legs during the night, pulling his knees to his chest and then stumbling off the bed. Because he’s classy like that.

He heads to the bathroom because his stomach is twisting in knots and he lurches for the toilet just in time to gag and puke whatever crap he must’ve eaten last night.

At least he hadn’t OD’d this time, he reasons bitterly.

He’d made it back to his own bed, too. And nobody else was in sight—which meant either he’d gotten laid and ducked out, or he hadn’t gotten laid at all.

Doug is going to be disappointed. But TJ’s almost certain he hadn’t snorted anything last night… there was just a lot of booze at the party. Who could blame him for getting a little hammered, right?

Mama would kill him if she found out. But it isn’t like he’d been photographed sitting in Sean Reeves’ lap or something

He flushes the toilet and shuffles to the sink, spitting in it and then halfheartedly picking up his toothbrush. He goes through the motions of brushing his teeth, glowering at himself in the mirror the whole while.

He misses the piano.

No he doesn’t. He tells himself he doesn’t, stubbornly, because playing the piano had been just another distraction put in front of him so he wouldn’t be a fuck up White House brat.

The real punchline is it hadn’t worked. All those years of music, sonatas and waltzes and other horseshit tunes, and he’s still the most fucked up of the Hammonds. Even Doug, the person closest in image to TJ (fucking twins), had managed to escape hell relatively unscathed. Gotten himself a beautiful, brilliant wife and a hell of a job.

TJ, though… TJ’s just this. A damn screw up of a child.

He wonders if Mama regrets ever finding him in the garage.

If she’d been a few minutes later, or decided to go out for a coffee run.

He’s sure nobody important would miss him.

He’s clean, right? He should be cured now.

Dirty, so fucking dirty. He’s been clean for months but everybody still sees that he’s dirty.

He spits in the sink again, drops his toothbrush back into the cup, and returns to his bedroom. Finds a shirt on the floor, pulls it on, then makes his way down the hall and to the kitchen. Margaret’s staring him down from behind her mimosa. (If anyone asks, he knows she’ll say it’s orange juice. She “loves the glass,” it reminds her of her glory days, blah blah blah.)

“What?” he asks flatly.

“You look like shit,” she shrugs, taking a sip. “You know, the boy who brought you home last night was a beauty. Bummer he didn’t stick around.”

So he had gotten laid. Probably.

“He left a number, you know,” she continues. “And you’ve been pretty good lately.”

“Wait, what?” he asks dumbly, because—what? Nobody leaves a number. You get a good lay with the former president’s queer son then you’re out. Everybody knows that.

“Mhm,” she hums with a Cheshire grin. She slides a slip of paper across the counter to TJ. “Can’t hurt to call, right?”


End file.
